This post first appeared in 2007 on my original Steve’s Not Nice blog on Blogger as part of a series on character. Now that I have integrated my blogs into one site here at Blazing Core, I am posting the series here.

This fellow that I knew for a while liked to tell people he was going to be “boldly honest” with them. He said it was an alternative to “brutally honest,” because he would tell truth that might be hard to hear but with good intentions. Unfortunately, one of the “boldly honest” things he said was that he no longer wanted to be a business partner with another man. This was less than two months after I paid the two men a lot of money to buy a share of their small business consulting firm. The existing accounts collapsed pretty quickly and my money went down the drain – boldly.

I like the idea of unabashed honesty. It appeals to the side of me that detests false praise, artificial sweetness, and glad-handing salesmen. It’s the voice of the little boy yelling, “The Emperor has no clothes!” It’s the voice of sanity and reason.

The fellow who wanted to be “boldly honest” claimed a distinction between honest statements that cause a lot of hurt compared to honest statements that are meant for good. I’m not convinced he was concerned with the good of others, but people were drawn in by his distinction.

Why? What is “brutally honest?” If the truth is so brutal that revealing it will cause pain, how should we judge withholding that truth? The problem is, most people won’t say the “brutally honest” thing to a person’s face, but they’ll say it to lots of other people behind their back. Is that nice? Is that kind? Is that a concern for the welfare of the person being talked about? I don’t think so. I think it’s just a shallow desire to be seen as “nice” plus a fear of confrontation. The motivation is self-interest. Self-interest is not kind, and it’s not even nice.

Scott Peck has written a lot about love in his books, most notably The Road Less Traveled. He doesn’t define love as emotion or affection. He says love is actively committing to the good of another person, most specifically that person’s psychological and spiritual growth.

This leads me to the very difficult realization that sometimes I have to tell someone a difficult truth because it is in that person’s best interest. It will contribute to that person’s growth. Withholding the comments will help the person stay stuck in some problem.

There’s an even more difficult realization. Sometimes the motivation to tell the other person the hard truth, the temptation to be “brutally honest,” is not to help or improve or do anything positive. It’s to vindicate myself. It’s to complain about a really difficult situation and try to end it. It’s to get revenge.

Too often my concern with justice, or forgiveness, or compassion, or humility, or mercy has little to do with the greater good of another person. It’s usually about me trying to demand something for myself.

Cut me some slack.

Stop acting like you’re better than everyone else, because you’re pushing my own shame buttons.

I’m a mess!

I’ve already said I’m not nice. I don’t really want to be. I want to be kind. Unfortunately, I’m not very kind, either.

Kindness is my goal. It will be for the rest of my life, and it’s never going to get easy or boring.

Kindness is the balance of these many values in harmony. A key component of active love, kindness works for the good of others. As hospitality it offers shelter, and food, and clothing, and a warm fire. As consideration it is the small favor I did not even know I needed. As encouragement it is the gentle smile of comfort when I am in turmoil. As friendship kindness helps me see my own limitations and to forgive myself. As the bestowing of dignity it inspires me to look at a person’s heart instead of the mess he has made. It humbles me when I receive it and it fortifies me when I give it. It is the foundation of any lasting relationship.

This post first appeared in 2007 on my original Steve’s Not Nice blog on Blogger as part of a series on character. Now that I have integrated my blogs into one site here at Blazing Core, I am posting the series here.

I was just retaking the VIA (Values in Action) Strengths Test and realized that there were a lot of questions about holding grudges, forgiving and forgetting, giving people second chances, and all sorts of things I didn’t want tested. “Forgiveness and Mercy” wound up ranked number 22 out of 24. Why, I ought to get those guys! The test is rigged and it’s unfair! I’ll show them….

Okay, in all fairness (to me), “Fairness, Equality, and Justice” ranked number 7. That probably gets in the way of the letting go and moving on thing.

I know it’s also a challenge for me that I grew up in a family with alcoholism on many branches. My poor uncle tried to drink himself to death and nearly succeeded, but the lung cancer from smoking foiled his plan.

Decades ago they were doing studies on Adult Children of Alcoholics and found out different people play different roles in alcoholic families. Some pretend everything’s perfect at home and try to hide the problems from other people. They also usually try to fit in and look “normal.” If they can get acceptance from people who are socially or financially successful they think they’ll feel good enough inside. It doesn’t really work because they usually go around fearing that someone will see the “truth” of their chaotic past and unsettled and insecure heart in the present. They can wind up pushing away family and childhood friends and anyone who can threaten the false image they’re trying to maintain.

That’s sure not me! But it is the way many people I know, in my family and from other chaotic backgrounds, live their lives. I’m on the other extreme. I’m like the voice of a prophet in the wilderness. When something’s not right and people are trying to smooth things over and pretend everything’s fine, I get anxious. In fact, even as a child my grandparents called me a sh** stirrer.

So you combine a drive for justice and fairness with a need to call things as I see them and it’s little wonder “forgive and forget” gets forgotten. Because I’ve seen what happens when people keep forgiving and trying to forget the behavior of really messed up people, I’m slow to forget offenses. I usually watch closely to see if this is a reasonably healthy person making a human error, or if I’m seeing signs of ongoing problems and need to be cautious. If someone is an addict, or a manipulator, or self-absorbed at the expense of others, the people around them often try to make excuses and “normalize” it. I’ve been super-sensitized and have become vigilant to keep from being hurt again and again by such people.

As a result, when someone treats me in a ways that hurts or offends, I have to wait a while because my Justice starts roaring. When I’m finally able to explain to the person how his or her behavior affected me, I do it. And I set a boundary, stating my expectation of how I will be treated going forward. Then I watch like a hawk. Healthy people apologize and instinctively give me words of kindness and respect to counter the hurt. With someone like that, forgiveness is very easy, and forgetting is… well, I’m still not good at forgetting, but I can sure stick it way over in the back corner of my mind.

But when I tell a person how he has offended or hurt me and he is defensive, even argumentative, and turns things around so that he is the “victim” because I stood up for myself, the path is different. I set boundaries to respect and protect myself, and also to show a path for the relationship to be restored. With such a person, I find, the best I’ll get is a commitment to make changes, but no real and lasting changes happen. He (or she) tries to convince me, persuade me, and sometimes even shame me into “moving on.” That helps me see even more clearly that the boundaries have to stay firm or I will be hurt again in the same way.

I don’t help myself, and I don’t serve a selfish and manipulative person, by allowing the patterns of mistreatment to continue. I do serve both of us by setting boundaries and showing a way to restoration of a broken relationship. Allowing the pattern to continue and “forgiving and forgetting” is just enabling with the most troubled people. Staying firm on the boundaries gives that person an opportunity for improvement and growth and a way to move away from disruptive and unhealthy behavior.

Anything less is just a shaky truce, and a relationship based on an unspoken agreement to pretend things are what they are not. It is shallow and unreal. Relationships between people who commit to the steps of restoration become richer and deeper. They are much stronger over time. I prefer to have no relationship over phony truces and pretense every time.

Restoration is healing after damage. It can be healing inside the soul of a person who has lived through hardship and mistreatment. It can be rebuilding a relationship after trust was shattered. It can be returning to work after foolish choices derailed a career. Restoration is the promise that what is wrong and seems hopeless right now can be made right. It is the evidence that inspires hope.

This post first appeared in 2007 on my original Steve’s Not Nice blog on Blogger as part of a series on character. Now that I have integrated my blogs into one site here at Blazing Core, I am posting the series here.

I’ve been teaching my older son to drive so I’m confronted by questions of patience and understanding and calmness a lot more these days. My patience and understanding and calmness with my son are pretty easy most of the time. He’s almost never done anything that could have turned dangerous! He’s pretty careful so we wait until the road is really clear before going, and he sees other drivers rushing up and pushing their way in so he slows down to avoid the commotion.

My patience and understanding and calmness are stressed much more by the other drivers. I learned defensive driving decades ago during my driving training and it’s all stored in the corners of my brain, but as I explain it to my son I recognize even more clearly just how wild a lot of drivers are.

Yesterday on the freeway during rush hour a driver came racing up a lane to the left that was going to end in less than 500 feet (the great big yellow sign tells us all that) and whipped in right behind me, immediately tailgating me, and he gave a “thank you” wave to the guy he almost hit when he forced his way between us. A few hundred feet later, he swerved into the right lane and then back into my lane, almost hitting my car as he forced his way into a very small space. He gave me the same “thank you” wave! My response was a hand gesture, too, but it wasn’t friendly and warm.

My son got upset with me. A couple of weeks back we studied the unit on hostility and aggression while driving. “That was a hostile act,” he reminded me. I told him, “The guy wasn’t even looking when he waved so he didn’t see it.” Then I started thinking about it. I wanted him to see it, but not just to get back at him. He seemed totally oblivious to how dangerous his driving was, how anxiety provoking and shocking and offensive. I didn’t want to anger him – I wanted to startle him back to reality. I’m pretty sure he’s still oblivious, even as you read this.

Later on, same trip across Dallas to Plano for soccer practice, I was entering another highway with an entrance ramp that becomes an exit only ramp pretty quickly. I got up to highway speed and signaled, ready to move over before being forced to exit, but a woman driving a mid-size SUV talking on her cell phone was coming up just barely faster than the speed limit. Not fast enough for me to slow down and let her rush past in the short space I had to enter the road. She was alongside me, talking and barely moving ahead, and my lane was ending. I gave about three quick honks on the horn – the “friendly” kind you’re supposed to give before passing a freight truck on a two-lane highway as a signal — and she slowed down just enough for me to move on the highway as the lane started to exit.

I’m warning my son about other drivers as much as possible, with specific examples whenever I see them. It’s not helpful to say, “There are just a bunch of nuts and idiots running around out there.” I say things like, “See that guy who switched lanes quickly and rushed up to tailgate that slow car? He didn’t even notice he was moving into a lane with a slow car just a few yards ahead. He’s going to whip in front of you without paying attention so let off the accelerator a little.” I try to describe as many specific examples of the “agents of chaos” and how to predict which ones are likely to do abrupt and dangerous things.

I want to be specific because otherwise I sound like my grandmother, who used to say, “People are just no d*mn good.” She did attend a Presbyterian church in her younger days, so maybe she was just espousing the doctrine of the total depravity of man due to original sin. But I don’t think so! She tended to expect the worst in people – and she was rarely surprised. She was looking for selfish, rude, mindless, inconsiderate behavior. Jackpot! When I tune my mind that way, I find a bonanza. I think the status quo for most people is running on autopilot and being pretty oblivious to how they affect other people.

Because my grandmother was essentially right that “people are just no d*mn good,” since we are all flawed and make mistakes that are offensive and annoying without even realizing it, we all need an abundance of undeserved favor from each other. We need to give and receive forgiveness easily. We need to see the needs in other people, especially the unspoken ones, and give what we have. We need to listen for the ways we can make an important difference in another person’s life, realizing most of them are pretty easy for us and don’t demand much from us.

We need to carry around buckets of grace to pour out on other people – even, maybe especially, crazy drivers on the highway who cut us off and won’t let us get out of lanes that are about to end. And the women who dial their cell phones and start talking before they put their Suburbans in reverse so they’re trying to back up from a parking space driving with one hand and most of their mind occupied with something else. And the people at check-out counters who ask lots of questions about the items they have, ask employees to bring them more items while we all wait, and make their decisions about buying at the counter instead of before getting in line. And soccer referees – man! That’s a lot of grace.

I’m gonna’ need a bigger bucket. But I realize I know I should give at least as much grace as I need to receive, so I probably ought to carry around plenty to spare.

Grace has its roots in theology, where it means the unmerited kindness and sustenance provided by God to mankind, His forgiveness that we have not earned, and His special intervention to provide help and to bless people. As a human quality, it means I strive to give to others what they truly need because I am able to give. It means, out of deep thankfulness to God for His sustenance, for His blessings, and for His forgiveness, I offer sustenance, blessings, and forgiveness to others who need them. In this way I can become a vessel of God’s daily grace to other people.

This post first appeared in 2007 on my original Steve’s Not Nice blog on Blogger as part of a series on character. Now that I have integrated my blogs into one site here at Blazing Core, I am posting the series here.

An online news story today discusses the widely varied sentences for parents who leave their very young children unattended in hot cars, resulting in death. Mothers are punished more severely than fathers, and paid caregivers are more likely to be prosecuted and punished than parents. Only about half the cases are prosecuted, because it is nearly always accidental, but half are seen as victims themselves and the other half as perpetrators by neglect.

Are fathers “excused” more often because they aren’t considered primary caregivers and get a pass when they forget something important—like taking their children out of hot cars? Are mothers pursued more vigorously because they should know better, or because their failures challenge our culturally iconic myth of motherly love?

Are paid caregivers treated more severely because they are paid? Because that pay is pretty low in most circumstances. Are they punished more because the exaggerated outrage helps detract from the truth that parents don’t want to see, that the parent bares some responsibility for placing the child in someone else’s care? By punishing caregivers more severely, are we as a society fabricating a belief that paid caregivers should be held to excessively high standards so parents don’t have to feel responsible for the decisions they make about leaving their children behind?

The story is just a news story, so it can’t really explain the reasons for the differences. But there is an underlying sense of vengeance, not justice, in how the cases are handled so differently. I think that’s because pure justice is equal, but justice applied within a judicial system leaves plenty of room for excuses and exceptions in some cases, and harsh treatment in others.

In a much less heartbreaking example of fiddling with rules, a friend on an internet forum posted recently that her employers at a job she is leaving got in a final “dig” at her as she left. She gave them reasonable notice and continued to work, but the final paycheck included inaccurate deductions and seemingly intentional oversight of actual hours worked and vacation and sick pay accrued. Expecting to be paid in full for her final week, she was getting just a few dollars. The employers were either operating within “the rules” and applying them to their full benefit, or ignoring some rules but assuming the enforcement of the rules would favor them as record keepers.

What is up with us? Why do we fiddle around with fairness and justice, putting some people in a chokehold just because we can and excusing other people’s failures, even when they are fatal?

I think it’s usually for all the wrong reasons. When we can exercise power and stomp down with authority, it’s too easy to conflate our desire for revenge or retaliation with “the law.” When we have the freedom to go easy on a lawbreaker and soften the consequences, it’s easy to use that power to readjust rules we don’t support or apply a warped idea of justice: What he did was bad but he’s so grief-stricken that anything society does to him can’t come close.

Worse, we can delude ourselves into believing we are withholding punishment out of mercy, when in fact we are protecting ourselves from facing an awful truth that’s hard to see. People who worry they might not be capable of the diligent action required by a law might be inclined to let someone else off for violating that law. Going easy on one guy might make it likely others will go easy on them when they mess up.

Mercy, I believe, can only be given freely. The person extending mercy cannot truly be merciful if enforcing the rules or the law would cause him unbearable distress; giving leniency cannot be merciful if it actually makes things easier for the guy in charge. It can’t be mercy if the person granting it dislikes the rule or thinks it’s unfair or harsh—that’s just rewriting the rule one instance at a time.

I think a person has to see the misdeed as wrong to be able to extend mercy. He has to agree that some kind of punishment is a fair and just consequence for the act. He has to be able and willing to mete out the punishment and enforce the consequence. Only when he has that freedom, but chooses to withhold some portion of the consequence, for the ultimate greater benefit of the transgressor, is he truly showing mercy.

Mercy is the triumph of compassion and forgiveness over justice. Mercy draws these values together and attempts to balance them in a way that honors standards but accepts shortcomings. In humility and with empathy, full of hope for restoration, I see another person broken by his own mistakes and, with faith in his desire to change himself and repair the damage he has done, I set aside justice and offer comfort and assistance. Mercy is my response to a genuine need for help and healing.

This post first appeared in 2007 on my original Steve’s Not Nice blog on Blogger as part of a series on character. Now that I have integrated my blogs into one site here at Blazing Core, I am posting the series here.

I come from a family of people who don’t apologize very often—some never. It’s not because they’re without flaws. I know that because a lot of people in the family were good at pointing out the flaws of the other people. But none of us were very good at seeing and admitting flaws in ourselves. If one person said he’d been mistreated by another person, the “accused” would make excuses, deny there was any wrongdoing, or point to the “accuser’s” history to show that, by comparison, the alleged misdeed was not much to complain about.

I also come from a broader background, in school mostly, where apologies had to be sincere enough to be accepted. If Jimmy hit Johnny, Jimmy had to say “sorry” without rolling his eyes or groaning or the teacher would make him try again. If Johnny didn’t believe Jimmy was really “sorry,” he would say so and not accept the apology.

As I reached adulthood and was working in the family child care center, then also in schools and a residential treatment center, I tried to explain to children why they were expected to apologize for wrongdoing. I told them it was acknowledging that you had done something wrong that hurt or offended another person. I told them it showed that you felt empathy for the pain you had caused to another person. I told them it showed you regretted what you did and wished you hadn’t done it. I even told them it meant you intended not to do that thing again!

As you can tell, I was naive. The best an apology can mean is: I realize I caused hurt, and I know I shouldn’t have done what I did. It doesn’t always mean I wish I hadn’t done it, and it certainly doesn’t mean I won’t do it again! An honest apology would probably sound something like, “I’m sorry I ________ you. I’ll probably regret it later, but right now it still seems kinda like you deserved it. I’d be mad if someone did that to me so I know it was probably wrong. I can’t guarantee I won’t do it again. In fact, change takes time so I’ll probably act that way a lot.”

As I learned later, I was conflating forgiveness with restoration. Apologies don’t have to be “good enough” for someone to forgive. In fact, you can forgive without ever getting an apology. Apologies help in the process of forgiving, and sincere apologies can help with restoration. But apologies don’t have to precede forgiveness. Forgiveness is not earned and it is not bestowed.

I’m in favor of a different sort of message now. Forgiveness is good for the forgiver. Failing to forgive leads to ongoing hurt and resentment in the non-forgiver. We all need to forgive at least as much as we need to receive forgiveness from other people.

You can forgive and still have requirements for restoration. You can forgive and still need a lot of time to heal. But for your own sake you need to forgive as soon as you feel able.

Forgiveness is acknowledging the hurt and pain caused by someone’s offense, and at the same time letting go of the claim on revenge or punishment, or even restitution. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, but it does mean letting go of the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver to move forward by letting go of the demand the transgressor must satisfy justice. It means letting go of anger and the desire to hurt in return. Forgiveness ends the conflict and opens the door for restoration, but it does not guarantee restoration. A person deeply hurt may require changes in a relationship in order to be willing to continue it. The transgressor may or may not agree. A person can forgive but choose not to continue a relationship. Even without restoration of a relationship, forgiveness is the way to let go of past hurt and move forward. It frees the forgiver as much as it frees the forgiven.

This post first appeared in 2007 on my original Steve’s Not Nice blog on Blogger as part of a series on character. Now that I have integrated my blogs into one site here at Blazing Core, I am posting the series here.

I think my give a d@%#’s busted! I get mad just trying to write about this topic. I already erased three paragraphs because I was off on a rant against parents who pamper their children and protect them from responsibility—and even from normal disappointment of not getting everything they want! I was going to compare enabling and caretaking and pampering spoiled weak people with true compassion, but I got WAY off subject.

The voice that’s yelling from the back of my head is saying that lots of people don’t know what compassion is, at least not true compassion, so it gets displaced by all these counterfeits.

Worrying about a teenage young man (nearly adult) getting his feelings hurt because he hears people talking about being frustrated that he and his teammates didn’t put out much effort in a tournament—that’s not compassion. That’s pampering. When parents pay thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of their time to give their sons the opportunity to play a sport at a highly competitive level, it’s right to expect them to perform. It’s necessary. The message otherwise is destructive—we’ll put out the effort, we’ll pay a lot, we’ll prioritize our time, but you aren’t expected to commit or stick with it if it feels too hard.

Complaining to a concession stand worker that your young child doesn’t like hot dogs or popcorn, so why don’t they have chicken nuggets or something your child will eat, is not compassionate to your child. It’s ridiculous. It says the whole world—even the junk food world of concession stands—has to change to accommodate your child’s mercurial tastes.

The father who picked up his two-year-old son and put him on his shoulders and then encouraged his six-year-old son to join him racing his four-year-old daughter to the car—he was not compassionate. In fact, when he taunted the little girl because he (a grown adult man in case I didn’t make that clear) and the older boy won, she started crying. The moron’s response? He talked to her and the older boy the way middle school boys tease each other during competitions. She was devastated.

Maybe I should automatically feel compassion for the moron. Maybe I should see how broken he must be to need to beat his own four-year-old daughter at a race and then TAUNT her to get the sense that his equipment really is male.

Maybe I should feel compassion for the mother who is overwrought that her nearly adult son will feel the weight of other people’s expectations. Maybe I should see that she’s probably pampering and babying him because harsh expectations caused her a lot of pain. It’s not for certain, but it’s likely, and it’s certainly more compassionate than what I start out thinking.

Maybe I should feel how burdensome it is to be the mother of a preschooler who won’t eat hot dogs, won’t eat popcorn, won’t eat who-knows-what-else, but still feels desperate to rush around and find some specific junk food to feed the not-starving child.

Nah. That would be like feeling sorry for the man who had to clean his own house because he got his knickers in a knot and fired the cleaning service while his wife was away visiting family.

Compassion is concern about the welfare of others and includes empathy, the ability to have other people’s feelings resonate in your own heart. It is expressed not in caretaking, but in helping others learn to take care of themselves. It is doing for them only what they cannot do for themselves while expecting them to do what they can do and to learn what they don’t yet know. Burdens are lightened and lifted when shared, but joy shared becomes joy overflowing.